The Department of the Interior -- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday that the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog and a subspecies of the mountain yellow-legged frog will be listed as endangered -- and the Yosemite toad as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Nearly 1,400 lifers in California's prisons have been released over the past three years in a sharp turnaround in a state where murderers and others sentenced to life with the possibility of parole almost never got out.

In the first penalty of its kind, federal transportation officials on Tuesday docked Asiana Airlines $500,000 for failing to promptly contact passengers' families and keep them informed about their loved ones after a deadly crash last year at San Francisco airport.